The Running Body: A Memoir

by Emily Pifer

A memoir of addiction, body image, and healing, through the lens of a long-distance runner.
 
Emily Pifer’s debut memoir, The Running Body , wrestles and reckons with power and agency, language and story, body dysphoria and beauty standards, desire and addiction, loss and healing. Pifer employs multiple modes of storytelling—memoir, meditation, and cultural analysis—interweaving research, argument, and experience as she describes how, during her time as a collegiate distance runner, she began to run more while eating less. Many around her, including her coaches, praised her for these practices. But as she became faster, and as her body began to resemble the bodies that she had seen across start-lines and on the covers of running magazines, her bones began to fracture. Pifer tells her story alongside the stories of her teammates, competitors, and others as they all face trouble regarding their bodies.

Through the lens of long-distance running, Pifer examines the effects of idolization and obsession, revealing the porous boundaries between what counts as success and what is considered failure. While grounded in truth, The Running Body interrogates its relationship to magical thinking, the stories we tell ourselves, and the faultiness of memory. Fractures, figurative and literal, run through the narrative as Pifer explores the ways bodies become entangled in stories.
 
The Running Body was selected by Steve Almond as the winner of the 2021 Autumn House Nonfiction Prize.
 

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2022

About the author

you can take a look at what i've been reading here: https://emilypifer.com/reading_log/

Reviews

[Madyson Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am usually hesitant to write reviews when something is remarkable because I’m worried that my words will taint it or influence anyone’s experience when they do come into contact with it, but in this case - I feel like this is an important enough book that warrants an effort to capture my experience.

Throughout “The Running Body” Emily masterfully interrogates some of the most pressing and haunting elements of the human experience through the lens of her own personal journey. Before I started reading this book, a friend saw it on my bookshelf and asked what it was about. “I think it’s about the author’s relationship with her body as a competitive runner.” Generally speaking you could say that that is an accurate statement, but it’s also about suffering. Grief. Obsession. Pain. Love. Lust. Insecurity. Fear. Shame. Pride. Success. Failure. Recovery. Existence. Purpose. Life.

One of Emily’s talents is that in a mere 192 pages she is able to delve into all of those elements of humanity, further complicate (and simplify?) them by attaching them to cultural norms and biases, rope you in to her own story (gut-wrenching with courageous vulnerability and honesty), and force you (without asking or telling you) to consider how these themes look through the lens of your own story and experience.

If you or someone you care about is interested in collegiate and professional sports (participating, watching, or coaching), this is an important read. If you or someone you care about has struggled with an eating disorder or body image issues, this is an important read. But regardless of your connection (or lack thereof) with college sports or eating disorders, this is still an important read that will leave you feeling raw and with an urgent sense of needing to understand your own relationship with your motives and passions.

“Isn’t acceptance the most devastating step in the grieving process because it is inside a state of acceptance that you risk losing what you have lost?”

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What happened? You are asking. Be more clear, you are saying. But I have been wanting to show you what looking at this wound looks like to me."

every word, every wound Emily has written in The Running Body does not have my claw marks on it because i will never let any of them go.

[Kimberlee Howley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Six months after my first running-induced fracturing, I picked up this book. It made me feel so much less alone. Emily puts to words things that I've felt, like the ways that a mind can connect or disconnect from a body in motion, depending on so many factors. It's also a different kind of memoir. Instead of a traditional narrative with a clear beginning, middle, and end, it analyzes patterns of practice and habits and how they add up over time. It's a reminder that I always need, that not every story needs or should be tied up neatly, that not everything resolves and that's okay. That's not how life or our bodies work, with their minds of their own. At a particularly vulnerable moment in my return to running, reading this book made me feel like I had a cool older sister who was very well read and witty and talented and who had also Seen Some Sh*t with her own body and didn't want the cycle to continue with me. This book is a gift and I am grateful.

[Theresa Mikolay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved Emily’s style of writing and imagery and how she described her life of running. This book gave my brain the words that I had felt for so long but didn’t know how to say. It felt healing to hear someone else say them.

[Lilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

“This is how you cut yourself out of your own story. This is how the last remaining pieces of the runner and the running body and the races and the injuries turn into nothing but the absence of nothing”

oh Emily knows

[Elsie Coen · Rating 4 out of 5]

definitely the most lyric/literary running memoir i’ve read (aka listened to) (and tbh i’m racking up the numbers). it was a little hard to follow the timeline which made it feel redundant at times but i really loved how raw this was

[Jeff Kline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding book. This story was very eye opening to me. I've known abstractly that overtraining and undereating are major issues for elite runners (I am a former runner and coach), but this book allowed me a further window into the experiences and the root causes of the matter. This is not a "how to" manual, rather a deeply personal tale of brokenness with a path towards healing. 

The memoir is extremely well written. The prose is intense and reflective and deep, even poetic at times. I found myself completely engrossed. I particularly enjoyed the underlying theme of mythology and the stories we create of our communities and of ourselves. Really fascinating stuff.

Emily bares her soul in the book - vulnerable, therapeutic and sincere. Highly recommended!

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written though maybe not for those who have struggled with disordered eating (there were a couple moments I had to attempt reading with eyes closed, if you get me). At moments I wished for more about the program—which is such a horrifying aspect of the story, how the coaches and program support disordered eating even knowing how harmful it is to the health of their runners. So many moments when I just wished for the adults to do something about what they obviously see happening. Still, this book clearly does enough to draw my attention to it and to the harm it does to the individual runners, and also explores the reshaping of memories around the years explored. EDs in running is one of those things we probably all grasp on some level (don’t we all know to look for the sickliest runner in a distance race, because they’ll for sure be the winner?) but haven’t thought about enough. Will definitely watch for more from this writer.

[ElleninNY · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook -- something I rarely do. Pifer is the reader, and I think that made this very personal book seem even more intimate.

I thought the writing was extraordinary. While it was a bit triggering, the triggering is part of the point. Her opening anecdote about traveling to a large national meet, meeting some famous runners, and marveling at how small they were set the stage to travel forward and back through Pifer's years of punishing comparison and striving. If we've ever dieted ... if we've ever run ... we've felt that feeling.

Aside from the very powerful running and eating disorder story, this book also really took me back to those college and post-college years of interning, dipping in and out of relationships, and just ... growing up. She's a fascinating thinker and writer, and I hope she has a long, happy future.

[Lauren Kraft · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really nice to hear voices from my local communities, especially about something that is very dear to my heart; systemic change for athletes with eating disorders. Pifer is straight-forward. She's not lyrical or heavily reliant on flowery prose. She does tell a compelling story, but it lacks a coherent thesis and theme. Sometimes just comes off as a diary. But when she's good, she's really good. She can get to the absolute wrenching core of what it is like to live with an eating disorder, and to mask that disease with love of sport. It's worth a read if you're an athlete. Maybe not so much if you're not.

[Asya · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a former competitive swimmer and writer who obsessively searches out anything anyone has ever written of meaning and beauty about being an athlete, I can attest that this is one of the best books that exists on the topic, that captures the painfulness, the joy, the obsession, the creation and destruction that go into being an athlete. This gorgeous, thoughtful, lyrical memoir made me weep and nod in recognition and feel immense gratitude to the author for the deep dive she took into her experience to mine it and give what is essentially the non-verbal language of the body such precise, moving language.

[Rosie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall this book disappointed me. The first half feels more narrative and straight forward memor. The second half the author wanders between timelines trying to make artsy metaphors. It doesn't feel like she actually loves running at all rather that it fueled an eating disorder and life long body obsession on her part. I think it would've been more appealing to read if she presented more research related to eating disorders in the pro running community as I'm sure it's rampant. She also spends most of the book seemingly missing her anorexic body days. I only finished this book cuz it was fairly short.

[J Yong · Rating 2 out of 5]

this provided really valuable insight to the culture of eating disorders within men and women's competitive running fields. I think a lot of the descriptions were very triggering though, and I would have liked to see more warnings/prior discussion to the very specific, graphic imagery/numbers/habits discussed. probably wouldn't recommend this to others for those reasons, but my own investment in running culture/quality of the writing still deserved two stars. also listened to on audio book, which is also aways a different experience compared to reading in my opinion

[Sarah Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Going to introduce this book to my running friends when I feel like they’re ready, but I’m going to need to exercise caution. This book is heavy- I don’t think I would’ve been ready for it until this year. I don’t relate to everything in her story but boy do I relate to the way she talks about the experience of a stress fracture. Really beautiful writing, it’s a privilege to know and understand how others understand the role of running in their sense of being.

[Taylor McCarthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Running Body: A Memoir was incredibly heartfelt and eyeopening. Eating disorders can be hard to understand and I feel like they are not talked about enough. This book allows the reader to see life through the eyes of someone viewing their world through their eating disorder. I gave 4 stars only because I was hoping for more closure at the end, although I do see how she mentally found some closure.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oof. What a read. The writing style is interesting--a little jumpy and stream of consciousness, but this packs a punch. Honestly could be very triggering for someone struggling with unhealthy eating and exercise habits, but her honesty in her forever struggle was brave. The running memoirs I've read this year have proven time and time again how dangerous so much of the mentality around elite running can be (and really, it trickles down! Our society is so f-ed up!).

[Anna McClaugherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a really good book and a quick read. I think she’s a very good writer, but I can also imagine this being very triggering for someone who is still caught in an eating disorder. So my only caveat is maybe don’t read this if you’re still struggling! Other than that, she captured her struggle, beautifully and poetically. So I still give it five stars.

[John Mignosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a person who has lost his identity as I let running consume my life I got lost in Emily's story. Her thoughts were both heart breaking and so familiar. I've reread several pages and probably will reread this book over and over as I try to find myself. I'm very thankful for her story and cannot recommend this book enough.

[Molly]

Great book, very vulnerable and honest. Felt very human and relatable on every level.

[Rachael Steil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written--this book is art. I couldn't put it down. One of the best books written on the topic.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. There were parts that I liked and parts that I didn’t liked, skipped over the parts that I didn’t care for. C+

[Alaina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just okay. Not as impressed as I thought I'd be.

[blake ciresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

MFA slop lowkey but I enjoyed this!

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

2025 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge #4: Read a book about obsession

[Kelly Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once upon a time, when I was in MFA school, a writer/professor got hammered at this party, and kept repeating over and over about how he couldn’t take any more essays from his female students about “the anorexia.”

As I read The Running Body, all I could think was, “But I had to read all these novels about a middle-aged man who seeks spiritual renewal through his teenage neighbor’s boobs.”

Because to be woman is to internalize all that projection and desire and loathing and admiration and resentment placed on your body before you’ve even had the chance to fully develop.

Pifer’s unraveling of what happens when this pressure combines with the desire to compete is smart and beautiful. I hate to run, but Pifer makes me understand what she wanted from the action; what it means to obsess, what it means to deliberately warp your own mind, even as you are aware that you are doing it. The expected sacrifice. The discarding.

I’m 54 but I was, once, The Swimming Body (although I also hate to lap swim, ha). I would have cantaloupe and Tab for dinner. Then I'd wake up in the middle of the night, skulk to the basement freezer, and spoon an entire Texas Gallon of ice cream straight from the tub. Pifer's memoir helped me make peace with that young body, or at least, help it feel less alone.

My friend and former Ultimate Frisbee teammate died of cancer a year ago this week. She was the one who flew up the hills, pushed us through grueling plyometrics, laughed at kettlebells. At 56 she was strong and muscular and smooth as ever on her deathbed, barely able to speak as I rubbed lotion on her dry feet. I'm finally learning what bodies are really for.

I taught Emily Pifer’s at Ohio University during the time she captures in this memoir. She wasn't writing about “the anorexia” then but after reading her debut memoir years later, I’m glad she did.